


Looking For What You Knew

by brynnmck



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-24
Updated: 2006-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brynnmck/pseuds/brynnmck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Sam's not a hundred percent sure what the protocol is when Dean is crying, but he's pretty sure it means </i>he<i> doesn't get to cry, so he just sits there, feels the warmth of the engine and the sun on his shoulders like blasphemy while Dean stares off into the distance.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking For What You Knew

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things."

Sam's not a hundred percent sure what the protocol is when Dean is crying, but he's pretty sure it means _he_ doesn't get to cry, so he just sits there, feels the warmth of the engine and the sun on his shoulders like blasphemy while Dean stares off into the distance. Sam can feel him shaking. He's been pushing and pushing his brother for days, trying to break through, but he's almost afraid to move now, like the time when he was eight and he'd climbed a tree and then been too scared to climb down. Dean had eventually clambered up there with him and they'd picked their way down together, Dean going first and pointing out all the best handholds and footholds, keeping up a running monologue of stupid jokes. Sam had still been a few feet from the bottom when John had grabbed him and swung him to the ground, and he'd found himself crushed against tattered Army Surplus canvas, muttered threats rumbling under the sound of his dad's heart pounding frantically against his ear. He squeezes his eyes shut against the memory.

He doesn't know how long they sit like that before Dean takes a deep, shuddering breath, his shoulders going rigid again. He clears his throat and levers himself off the car, swipes the sleeve of his jacket across his eyes as he walks around to the driver's side door. Sam goes back to his side without a word. Inside the car, Dean shoves in Zeppelin _III_ , cranks up the volume in a signal as clear as a shout, so Sam lets himself slump against his door and watches the rocks blur by.

"Holy fuck, Sam," Dean says, a hundred or so miles later.

Sam blinks, startled. "What?"

"Your hand."

He looks down. His right hand is purple-red and swollen, and now that he thinks about it, it's kind of throbbing. Maybe all that shoveling hadn't been the brightest idea in the world. "Huh."

"'Huh'?" Dean repeats, incredulous. "Dude, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one. Get out the map, find a hospital."

"It's—"

"Just find the damn hospital, Sam. You don't want that to heal wrong—then you'll never get any action."

Sam makes a face at him out of reflex, and Dean smirks; apparently they're back to business as usual. Not quite, though, because Dean gets quieter and quieter the closer they get to the hospital, and by the time they're in the parking lot, his eyes are a little too wide and his breathing's a little too fast. Sam swallows hard.

"Look, man," he says, trying to keep his voice light, "I don't need you to babysit me, and I'm starved. Wanna go find us some burgers or something? I can call you when I'm done."

Dean snorts, "What am I, a waitress?" but he can't entirely hide the relief on his face.

"You don’t have the legs," Sam shoots back, half-falling out the open car door as he ducks out of range of Dean's swiping arm.

"You're lucky I don't break your other hand, bitch!" Dean calls after him as he slams the door. Sam takes the opportunity to flip him off with the uninjured hand in question, and he can hear Dean chuckling through the partially open window.

It's only after the Impala rumbles away that Sam lets out the breath he's been holding. Business as usual. Right.

 

*****

 

The hospital takes forever, like hospitals always do. Sam isn't too thrilled about being there, either, and he sure as shit doesn't go near the coffee stand, but eventually they're done with him, a hard white cast stretching halfway up his forearm and an admonishment to stay off the football field for a while. He feels clunky and awkward, and he knows the stupid thing is going to piss him off a thousand times before it's off, but Dean's right—he'll be a lot sorrier if it heals wrong.

"Oh, that's sweet. Can I sign it?" Dean coos when he gets in the car, grabbing the cast for a quick inspection.

Sam snatches his arm back. "No, but you can bite me."

"Not when you're so _fragile_."

He doesn't know what Dean's been doing all this time, but he doesn't see any bruises or hear any sirens, so he's cautiously optimistic. "We staying here for the night?" It's late afternoon now, the sun already starting to dip in the sky. Winter's coming fast.

"Yeah, figured we might as well," Dean shrugs. "Found a place down the way."

Sam nods. "Yeah, OK. I'll call Ellen when we get there, tell her we'll be another day." A mini-mall slides by on their right; the _Liquor Store_ sign catches his eye. "Hey, pull in there, will ya?"

"Sam, we've been driving like three seconds." But he angles the Impala into the narrow parking lot anyway. "Fine. You want a Slurpee or whatever, just hurry it up."

Dean raises an eyebrow when Sam comes back out with a couple of bottles of Jack Daniels. "My hand hurts," Sam explains, and doesn't mention the prescription he's got crumpled in his pocket.

 

*****

 

OK, so technically, whiskey isn't exactly the preferred method of therapy for guilt and grief, but when it comes to Dean, it's either this or violence, and Sam's had plenty of the latter for the moment. Plus, it's not like there _is_ a preferred method of therapy for _my dad made a deal with the devil to save my life and now he's dead_ , so he's pretty much improvising anyway.

The motel room is small, but surprisingly clean. Dean makes a show of checking out the channel lineup card on top of the TV.

"Sorry, Sammy, adult entertainment is pay-per-view only. Want me to give you a few bucks and leave you and the TV alone for a while?"

"Fuck you," Sam mutters, flushing and hating himself for it. Not like Dean's never watched porn in his life. Dean just cackles, and it's good enough to hear him laugh that Sam can get over the fact that it's at his expense. Barely.

Dean flops down on one of the beds with a greasy bag of hamburgers, clicks the TV on and surfs till he settles on a _Ghost Hunters_ marathon. Dean swears he wants to drag these guys on a hunt someday, show them some real paranormal activity, but in the meantime, he and Sam get a kick out of mocking them. Sam's own bag of grease is on the table next to his bed, but he pins one of the fifths of JD between his legs, cracks the seal on the cap awkwardly with his left hand, and takes a long pull. He's not planning to get wasted—one of them needs to stay at least relatively sober, just in case—but he hadn't been lying about his hand hurting. He tosses the other bottle to his brother.

"One drink every time Brian makes you want to kick his ass," he offers.

Dean eyes the bottle for a few seconds, then picks it up with a shrug. "Too easy. One drink if someone has an _experience_ "—with accompanying wide eyes and air-quotes—"and five if they actually get something on tape."

"Deal."

It's a pretty good night for TAPS, and therefore a pretty good night for Dean, who's halfway through the bottle after two episodes. Sam watches him carefully, but he doesn't see any warning signs; Dean's generally a pretty cheerful drunk, and while he hasn't exactly been himself lately, he seems effectively distracted by the TV. His smile comes a little bit easier, not as sharp-edged as it's been the past few weeks, and the rigid lines of tension in his muscles are softening a bit. Sam smiles, pleased with himself.

"Quit staring at me, Sam," Dean says without taking his eyes off the TV screen, and Sam shakes his head a little and takes another swig of whiskey.

Jay and Grant are painstakingly reviewing grainy video footage of a chair moving about three inches, geeking out over it like it's the Dead Sea Scrolls, when Dean groans, "OK, I can't take this anymore," and mutes the TV. Sam reins in the urge to fight him for the remote, just on principle. Dean stares at the ceiling for a few seconds, then says, with some ceremony, "I had sex with a succubus once and she enjoyed it so much she let me go."

Sam snorts. "Bullshit. Are you not even gonna try?" They've played this since they were kids—though it had been "Bull" then, at least in Dad's hearing, and they'd traded punches on the arm instead of drinks—and Dean had started it up again sometime last year. Sam honestly wonders why they'd bothered when they were younger, since they barely spent more than a few hours apart back then, but it's actually something of a challenge now. He kind of hates that, but he figures that's why they keep playing.

"Fair enough," Dean concedes, taking a slightly sloppy drink. "She did sort of try to kill me. But I still think she liked it."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Whatever helps you sleep at night, dude." Then, after a moment's thought, "I made out with the Dean of Students' daughter at Stanford."

Dean's jaw drops. He looks over, scrutinizing, and Sam just raises his eyebrows and grins. "Sammy, you _dog_ ," Dean drawls finally, delighted. "Didn't think you had it in you. True."

Still grinning, Sam salutes his brother with the bottle and takes a drink.

" _Nice_ ," Dean says. "OK. Um… I once took out two werewolves with one bullet."

"True."

"Thank you."

"When I was sixteen, I snuck out with the Impala and went to Taco Bell and you never knew."

"Bullshit. Not in my baby."

"Drink up, big brother."

"No _way_."

And that's how it goes, till Dean's bottle is almost empty and Sam's is a lot lighter than he'd intended. It's hard to care too much; he's been awake for almost thirty-six hours, and he's pleasantly buzzed and his hand has finally stopped hurting and he lets himself drift on the sound of Dean's voice, his laugh, the rhythm of their game.

No matter what he tries, though, he can't seem to stop thinking about it, about the roadside and the sun and Dean crying, _Dean. Crying_. A memory pops into his head, and before he can stop himself, he blurts out, "Hey, did I ever tell you I went on a hunt once while I was at school?" He knows he hasn't. Last year, it had felt like concession, which seems really stupid when he thinks about it now.

Dean, who had been in the middle of a rapt description of some waitress in central Oregon, seems too startled to protest the interruption. "What? No."

"Yep. My sophomore year. There was this Spring-Heeled Jack, a couple of students had died, and I went after it." He shakes his head ruefully. "Chased it out to the forest, in the middle of nowhere, and it was jumping around, laughing… seemed like there were twelve of 'em. Scared outta my freakin' mind, man." He hesitates briefly, but barrels on. "And it was so weird—I could hear your voice in my head the whole time: 'Sam, watch your six,' 'Sam, that fucker breathes fire, stay out of range.'"

" _My_ voice?" Dean asks, soft and incredulous.

Sam stares hard at the bottle propped on his stomach, the fingers of his good hand picking at the label. "Yeah. Really fucking annoying."

Silence for a few seconds. "So?" Dean prompts finally. "Did you get it?"

He laughs. "I got lucky. It was late spring and the wood was dry, and I remembered that thing you did with the kitsune, in Connecticut?"

"Nice."

"Yep. Worked like a charm."

"Well, Sammy, I'm glad I taught you something, anyway."

_You taught me everything_ , Sam thinks, but he just says, "Guess so." It's an impossible choice, between his dad and his brother, but he can't be sorry Dean's alive, he can't.

For long minutes, there's no sound but the tiny plinks of Sam's fingers against the glass, the soft hiss of the label tearing. Then, "Stubborn son of a bitch," Dean whispers hoarsely from the other bed, and Sam knows he isn't talking about him.

"Yeah." He bites the insides of his cheeks and forces himself not to look up.

Another long silence, marked by Dean's unsteady breathing, and Sam can feel them teetering on the edge again. He takes a deep breath of his own, says the most ridiculous thing he can think of. "You know that woman who ran the motel in Billings, the one with the halitosis and the missing teeth? I gave her your phone number."

Dean's laugh bursts out of him, sharp and sudden and real. "That had better be bullshit," he threatens, his voice a little thick, "or you're walking from here on out."

"No, man, I'm serious. I think you two could really have something."

"You're lucky I'm too drunk to kick your ass."

The game continues, but things get pretty fuzzy after that, a punchy haze of alcohol and sleep deprivation. Sam doesn't remember falling asleep; he wakes to the bedside clock showing 2:05 and Dean snoring, fully clothed, on top of his covers. Sam smiles a little. Lurching across the mercifully short space between the two beds, he takes Dean's boots off, sets them on the floor, rolls his brother's dead weight into the blankets as best he can. "Shouldn't be—" Dean slurs in his sleep, flinching.

Sam closes his eyes for a second, tries to breathe. "Yeah, Dean, you should," he whispers finally, because he knows that at least, and he smoothes one hand along the edge of the cheap motel coverlet before he switches off the light.


End file.
